"Yes, I begin to think so already; but perhaps you can give me a few friendly words of warning from the stores of your experience, that I may be spared the pain of saying what so many look,'Grandma, the world is hollow; my doll is stuffed with sawdust; and I should like to go into a convent, if you please.'"
Debby's eyes were dancing with merriment; but they were demurely downcast, and her voice was perfectly serious.
The milk of human kindness had been slightly curdled for Mr. Joe by sundry college-tribulations; and having been "suspended," he very naturally vibrated between the inborn jollity of his temperament and the bitterness occasioned by his wrongs. He had lost at billiards the night before, had been hurried at breakfast, had mislaid his cigar-case, and splashed his boots; consequently the darker mood prevailed that morning, and when his counsel was asked, he gave it like one who had known the heaviest trials of this "Piljin Projiss of a wale."
"There's no justice in the world, no chance for us young people to enjoy ourselves, without some penalty to pay, some drawback to worry us like these confounded 'all-rounders.' Even here, where all seems free and easy, there's no end of gossips and spies who tattle and watch till you feel as if you lived in a lantern. 'Every one for himself, and the Devil take the hindmost': that's the principle they go on, and you have to keep your wits about you in the most exhausting manner, or you are done for before you know it. I've seen a good deal of this sort of thing, and hope you'll get on better than some do, when it's known that you are the rich Mrs. Carroll's niece; though you don't need that fact to enhance your charms,upon my life, you don't."
Debby laughed behind her parasol at this burst of candor; but her independent nature prompted her to make a fair beginning, in spite of Aunt Pen's polite fictions and well-meant plans.
"Thank you for your warning, but I don't apprehend much annoyance of that kind," she said, demurely. "Do you know, I think, if young ladies were truthfully labelled when they went into society, it would be a charming fashion, and save a world of trouble? Something in this style:'Arabella Marabout, aged nineteen, fortune $100,000, temper warranted'; 'Laura Eau-de-Cologne, aged twenty-eight, fortune $30,000, temper slightly damaged'; 'Deborah Wilder, aged eighteen, fortune, one pair of hands, one head, indifferently well filled, one heart, (not in the market,) temper decided, and no expectations.' There, you see, that would do away with much of the humbug you lament, and we poor souls would know at once whether we were sought for our fortunes or ourselves, and that would be so comfortable!"
Mr. Leavenworth turned away, with a convicted sort of expression, as she spoke, and, making a spyglass of his hand, seemed to be watching something out at sea with absorbing interest. He had been guilty of a strong desire to discover whether Debby was an heiress, but had not expected to be so entirely satisfied on that important subject, and was dimly conscious that a keen eye had seen his anxiety, and a quick wit devised a means of setting it at rest forever. Somewhat disconcerted, he suddenly changed the conversation, and, like many another distressed creature, took to the water, saying briskly,
"By-the-by, Miss Wilder, as I've engaged to do the honors, shall I have the pleasure of bathing with you when the fun begins? As you are fond of haymaking, I suppose you intend to pay your respects to the old gentleman with the three-pronged pitchfork?"
"Yes, Aunt Pen means to put me through a course of salt water, and any instructions in the art of navigation will be gratefully received; for I never saw the ocean before, and labor under a firm conviction, that, once in, I never shall come out again till I am brought, like Mr. Mantilini, a 'damp, moist, unpleasant body.'"
As Debby spoke, Mrs. Carroll hove in sight, coming down before the wind with all sails set, and signals of distress visible long before she dropped anchor and came along-side. The devoted woman had been strolling slowly for the girl's sake, though oppressed with a mournful certainty that her most prominent feature was fast becoming a fine copper-color; yet she had sustained herself like a Spartan matron, till it suddenly occurred to her that her charge might be suffering a like
"sea-change
Into something rich and strange."
Her fears, however, were groundless, for Debby met her without a freckle, looking all the better for her walk; and though her feet were wet with chasing the waves, and her pretty gown the worse for salt water, Aunt Pen never chid her for the destruction of her raiment, nor uttered a warning word against an unladylike exuberance of spirits, but replied to her inquiry most graciously,
"Certainly, my love, we shall bathe at eleven, and there will be just time to get Victorine and our dresses; so run on to the house, and I will join you as soon as I have finished what I am saying to Mrs. Earle,"then added, in a stage-aside, as she put a fallen lock off the girl's forehead, "You are doing beautifully! He is evidently struck; make yourself interesting, and don't burn your nose, I beg of you."
Debby's bright face clouded over, and she walked on with so much stateliness that her escort wondered "what the deuse the old lady had done to her," and exerted himself to the utmost to recall her merry mood, but with indifferent success.
"Now I begin to feel more like myself, for this is getting back to first principles, though I fancy I look like the little old woman who fell asleep on the king's highway and woke up with abbreviated drapery; and you look funnier still, Aunt Pen," said Debby, as she tied on her pagoda-hat, and followed Mrs. Carroll, who walked out of her dressing-room an animated bale of blue cloth surmounted by a gigantic sun-bonnet.
Mr. Leavenworth was in waiting, and so like a blond-headed lobster in his scarlet suit that Debby could hardly keep her countenance as they joined the groups of bathers gathering along the breezy shore.
Various
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 70, August, 1863 / A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
AN AMERICAN IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS
Having in a former number of this magazine attempted to give some account of the House of Commons, and to present some sketches of its leading members,1 I now design to introduce my readers to the House of Lords.
It is obviously unnecessary to repeat so much of the previous description as applies to the general external and internal appearance of the New Palace of Westminster. It only remains to speak of the hall devoted to the sessions of the House of Lords. And certainly it is an apartment deserving a more extended notice than our limits will allow. As the finest specimen of Gothic civil architecture in the world, perfect in its proportions, beautiful and appropriate in its decorations, the frescoes perpetuating some of the most striking scenes in English history, the stained glass windows representing the Kings and Queens of the United Kingdom from the accession of William the Conqueror down to the present reign, the niches filled with effigies of the Barons who wrested Magna Charta from King John, the ceiling glowing with gold and colors presenting different national symbols and devices in most elaborate workmanship and admirable intricacy of design, it is undeniably worthy of the high purpose to which it is dedicated.
The House of Lords also contains the throne occupied by the reigning sovereign at the opening and prorogation of Parliament. Perhaps its more appropriate designation would be a State-Chair. In general form and outline it is substantially similar to the chairs in which the sovereigns of England have for centuries been accustomed to sit at their coronations. We need hardly add that no expense has been spared to give to the throne such intrinsic value, and to adorn it with such emblems of national significance, as to furnish renewed evidence of England's unwavering loyalty to the reigning house.
In pointing out what is peculiar to the House of Lords, I am aware that there is danger of falling into the error of stating what is already familiar to some of my readers. And yet a traveller's narrative is not always tiresome to the tourist who has himself visited the same localities and witnessed the same scenes. If anxious for the "diffusion of useful knowledge," he will cheerfully consent that the curiosity of others, who have not shared his good fortune, should be gratified, although it be at his expense. At the same time, he certainly has a right to insist that the extraordinary and improbable stories told to the too credulous voyageur by some lying scoundrel of a courier or some unprincipled valet-de-place shall not be palmed upon the unsuspecting public as genuine tales of travel and adventure.
The House of Lords is composed of lords spiritual and lords temporal. As this body is now constituted, the lords spiritual are two archbishops, twenty-four bishops, and four Irish representative prelates. The lords temporal are three peers of the blood royal, twenty dukes, nineteen marquises, one hundred and ten earls, twenty-two viscounts, two hundred and ten barons, sixteen Scotch representative peers, and twenty-eight Irish representative peers. There are twenty-three Scotch peers and eighty-five Irish peers who have no seats in Parliament. The representative peers for Scotland are elected for every Parliament, while the representative peers for Ireland are elected for life. As has been already intimated, this enumeration applies only to the present House of Lords, which comprises four hundred and fifty-eight members,an increase of about thirty noblemen in as many years.
The persons selected from time to time for the honor of the peerage are members of families already among the nobility, eminent barristers, military and naval commanders who have distinguished themselves in the service, and occasionally persons of controlling and acknowledged importance in commercial life. Lord Macaulay is the first instance in which this high compliment has been conferred for literary merit; and it was well understood, when the great essayist and historian was ennobled, that the exception in his favor was mainly due to the fact that he was unmarried. With his untimely death the title became extinct. Lord Overstone, formerly Mr. Loyd, and a prominent member of the banking firm of Jones, Loyd, and Co. of London, elevated to the peerage in 1850, is without heirs apparent or presumptive, and there is good reason to believe that this circumstance had a material bearing upon his well-deserved promotion. But these infrequent exceptions, these rare concessions so ungraciously made, only prove the rigor of the rule. Practically, to all but members of noble families, and men distinguished for military, naval, or political services, or eminent lawyers or clergymen, the House of Lords is unattainable. Brown may reach the highest range of artistic excellence, he may achieve world-wide fame as an architect, his canvas may glow with the marvellous coloring of Titian or repeat the rare and delicate grace of Correggio, the triumphs of his chisel may reflect honor upon England and his age; the inventive genius of Jones, painfully elaborating, through long and suffering years of obscure poverty, the crude conceptions of his boyhood, may confer inestimable benefits upon his race; the scientific discoveries of Robinson may add incalculable wealth to the resources of his nation: but let them not dream of any other nobility than that conferred by Nature; let them be content to live and die plain, untitled Brown, Jones, and Robinson, or at best look forward only to the barren honors of knighthood. Indeed, it is not too much to say that for plebeian merit the only available avenues to the peerage are the Church and the Bar.
The proportion of law lords now in the House of Lords is unusually large,there being, besides Lord Westbury, the present Lord-High-Chancellor, no fewer than six Ex-Lord-Chancellors, each enjoying the very satisfactory pension of five thousand pounds per annum. Lord Lyndhurst still survives at the ripe age of ninety-one; and Lord Brougham, now in his eighty-sixth year, has made good his promise that he would outlive Lord Campbell, and spare his friends the pain of seeing his biography added to the lives of the Lord-Chancellors to whom, in Lord Brougham's opinion, Lord Campbell had done such inadequate justice.
The course of proceeding in the House of Lords differs considerably from that pursued in the House of Commons. The Lord-High-Chancellor, seated on the wool-sack,a crimson cushion, innocent of any support to the back, and by no means suggestive of comfort, or inviting deliberations of the peers, but is never addressed by the speakers. "My lords" is the phrase with which every peer commences his remarks.
Another peculiarity patent to the stranger is the small number usually present at the debates. The average attendance is less than fifty, and often one sees only fifteen or twenty peers in their seats. Two or three leading members of the Ministry, as many prominent members of the opposition, a bishop or two, a score of deluded, but well-meaning gentlemen, who obstinately adhere to the unfashionable notion, that, where great political powers are enjoyed, there are certain serious duties to the public closely connected therewith, a few prosy and pompous peers who believe that their constant presence is essential to the welfare and prosperity of the kingdom,such, I think, is a correct classification of the ordinary attendance of noblemen at the House of Lords.
This body possesses several obvious advantages over any other deliberative assembly now existing. Not the least among these is the fact that the oldest son of every peer is prepared by a careful course of education for political and diplomatic life. Every peer, except some of recent creation, has from childhood enjoyed all conceivable facilities for acquiring a finished education. In giving direction to his studies at school and at the university, special reference has been had to his future Parliamentary career. Nothing that large wealth could supply, or the most powerful family-influence could command, has been spared to give to the future legislator every needed qualification for the grave and responsible duties which he will one day be called to assume. His ambition has been stimulated by the traditional achievements of a long line of illustrious ancestors, and his pride has been awakened and kept alive by the universal deference paid to his position as the heir apparent or presumptive of a noble house.